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30 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.3https://www.eastbaytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/32x32-ebt.png?w=32Personal Technology – East Bay Timeshttps://www.eastbaytimes.com
3232116372269Magid: Apple, competitors building phones with impressive camerashttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/12/magid-apple-competitors-building-phones-with-impressive-cameras/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/12/magid-apple-competitors-building-phones-with-impressive-cameras/#respondThu, 12 Sep 2019 09:00:17 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6451878&preview_id=6451878I haven’t had a chance to put the new iPhones to the test, but based on what I saw at the Apple announcement Tuesday, they are better than I expected. For one
Larry Magid

thing, Apple reduced the price of its entry-level new phone by $50, selling the iPhone 11 at $669 compared with the $749 it initially charged for the iPhone XR.

The iPhone 11 Pro, which fills the slot of last year’s iPhone XS, starts at $999 for the model with a 5.8-inch screen. The 6.5-inch 11 Pro Max starts at $1,099 with its larger 6.5-inch screen. The only other difference between the Pro and the Pro Max is a larger battery on the larger phone. Apple claims “Up to 18 hours video playback; up to 11 hours video streaming” on the smaller phone and “Up to 20 hours video playback; up to 12 hours video streaming” on the Max. The company said that it added four hours of battery life to the smaller model and five hours to the larger one. If so, that’s an impressive achievement. Of all the upgrades companies can add to phones, extra battery life is the one that’s most important to me. If I’m doing a lot with my phone, I rarely get through a full day without having to recharge.

Based on the demos I saw during the announcement, the most impressive aspects of the new phones – especially the iPhone 11 Pro – are the upgraded cameras.

There are two camera lenses on the back of the iPhone 11 and three on the 11 Pro. The 11 sports both a wide mode and ultra-wide mode lens, making it possible to add more to a scene without having to back away from the subject. The 11 also has “Portrait mode, Night mode, Auto Adjustments, next-generation Smart HDR, and 4K video up to 60 fps with extended dynamic range.”

The new phone has improved portrait mode, with enhanced lighting effects and – most important—the ability to take pictures in low-light, like what Google offers on its Pixel 3 (Google too will soon announce new phones). There’s also an easier way to switch from still to video. You can be aiming your camera at a subject for a still shot and hold down the shutter to quickly shoot video. Apple also added slow-motion to the front “selfie” camera, calling it “slofies” along with a wider field of view to get even more friends into your selfie shots. That adds up to a pretty impressive camera for a phone which – though still expensive – is relatively inexpensive by Apple standards.

The 11 Pro takes it a step further with three lenses: wide, ultra-wide and telephoto. Previous Apple flagship phones had a 2X zoom but now there is the ability to zoom both out 2X and in 2X. Pixel density, which translates to resolution, is 458 pixels per inch.

In addition to an even higher resolution screen and a super-fast “A13 bionic” processor that Apple says the 11 Pro can perform a trillion operations per second, Apple has done a lot to upgrade the camera on its new high-end flagship phone. One feature, “Deep Fusion,” is said to take nine separate images each time you press the shutter – some are taken even before you press the shutter. In announcing the feature, which will be added later as a software update, Apple Vice President Phil Schiller described it as “computational photography mad science,” which is a colorful way of saying it uses artificial intelligence to improve your pictures.

My take on phone cameras

Based on what I’ve seen, Apple is taking camera phone photography to new heights. But it’s not as if smart phone cameras aren’t already amazing. I have a Google Pixel 3 and have recently been testing the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10, and in both cases, the cameras are awesome. Google will, of course, improve the camera when it releases its Pixel 4 later this fall, but I have no complaints about the camera on my current phone, including its “night mode,” which let me take pretty good pictures in dark settings.

On my shelf are, arguably, better cameras, including an old but high-quality digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR), similar to what professional photographers use – and a Sony RX 100, which is the highest rated compact camera with a large 1-inch sensor that’s 4 times bigger than the one in most compact cameras, letting in extra light, resulting in stunning images.

I bought my RX-100 a few years ago, and now there are newer and even more advanced models, but – because of the quality of the cameras in my last couple of smart phones, I haven’t used this stand-alone camera in about two years. Arguably, it could produce better pictures, and if I were a professional photographer, a very serious armature or about to take a trip to some exotic place that simply begged for taking lot of great pictures – I might consider dusting it off or maybe even buying one of the newer digital SLRs.

But the last couple of times I went on trips where I planned to take photos, I didn’t bother because the camera in my phone is good enough for what I care about. And, as any photographer will tell you, the best camera is the one you have with you, which is always my phone camera. Not only do I use it to take pretty pictures, I use it to photograph receipts, street signs near where I park my car, luggage tags and just about anything else I might need to keep or as a reminder. Although I have a flatbed scanner at home, I’ve even used my phone camera as a document scanner or to take a picture of a picture.

As a reality check, I placed a call to my friend and former CBS News executive producer Charlie Kaye, who is now a professional photographer in New York. He admits that smartphones can take great pictures but continues to use and purchase high-end cameras for his professional work. “The small sensors on phone cameras simply can’t process the amount of light as what you get with a full frame camera,” he told me. In the real world, Kaye must put up with varying lighting conditions and feels a lot more confident with the results he gets from his high-end cameras. There is also the issue of speed. If you’re photographing sports, breaking news, animals or kids, you may not have time to fiddle with a phone camera or wait till it’s ready for another shot. You need a camera that can take several shots per second.

So, despite the amazing photos and videos that Apple showed off from some great professional photographers, Kaye doesn’t expect cell phones to replace digital SLRs for professionals and very serious amateurs. But for me and many like me, what Apple showed off and what Google and Samsung and older Apple phones are already delivering, is more than good enough.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/12/magid-apple-competitors-building-phones-with-impressive-cameras/feed/064518782019-09-12T02:00:17+00:002019-09-12T15:13:21+00:00Magid: YouTube settlement has unintended consequencehttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/06/magid-youtubes-ftc-childrens-privacy-settlement-makes-sense-but-has-unintended-consequence/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/06/magid-youtubes-ftc-childrens-privacy-settlement-makes-sense-but-has-unintended-consequence/#respondFri, 06 Sep 2019 09:00:32 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6431777&preview_id=6431777I have mixed feelings about the record $170 million settlement between Google and the Federal Trade Commission over Google’s alleged violations of the
Larry Magid

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Even though the fine represents more than all other COPPA fines combined, it still amounts to a slap on the wrist compared with the enormous amount of money made by Google’s parent, Alphabet. According to Wired, it translates to “roughly two days’ worth of profit.”

According to the FTC, YouTube collected information, “in the form of persistent identifiers that are used to track users across the internet—from viewers of child-directed channels.” The agency added that “YouTube earned millions of dollars by using the identifiers, commonly known as cookies, to deliver targeted ads to viewers of these channels.”

There is no way to know for sure who those cookies are associated with. Given the nature of the content, it’s likely to be mostly children, but – at least for very young children – it’s also likely that their parents.

In addition to paying the fine, YouTube also promised to change the way it monetizes children’s content.

COPPA requires verified parental consent before children under 13 can provide any personal information to a commercial service. It’s the main reason that Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and most other social media companies don’t allow anyone to use their services if they say they are under 13.

Google has similar rules when it comes to children setting up their own YouTube accounts, but there is a significant amount of content on YouTube that’s designed to appeal to young users. Think Saturday morning TV cartoons on steroids. And, as long as a child isn’t creating an account (required to upload content), YouTube doesn’t ask for their age.

Behavior vs. contextual advertising

Like most online commercial media sites, YouTube makes money through behavioral advertising, which is different than the contextual advertising of traditional commercial media such as TV, print and radio. For example, if a child sees an ad for a toy or a food item when watching cartoons, that ad is shown because of the content attracts children. With behavioral advertising, the advertisers don’t just know the basic demographics of their audience, but also what other sites users of that device or account have visited. What’s more, the mere fact that they are watching a particular program or engaged in a particular online activity is recorded and shared with other advertisers, which is more valuable than the ability to show them an ad based on the program they’re viewing or site they’re visiting. Because it’s device or account based, Google doesn’t necessarily know who is viewing.

Before I go on, I must disclose that ConnectSafely, the non-profit internet safety organization which I co-founded, receives money from Google and has advised Google on various child-related products and services, including YouTube Kids. But my relationship with Google doesn’t make me unsympathetic to the views of the FTC. I agree that Google violated both the spirit and the letter of COPPA and feel that it’s appropriate for it to pay a fine and change its data collection and advertising policies for children under 13.

Funds could be better used

I do regret that the $170 million fine is going to the federal treasury instead of being earmarked for programs to educate families on internet safety and privacy. The total budget of all the internet safety, privacy and security groups combined doesn’t come close to that amount and isn’t even a fraction of the $5 billion fine that Facebook recently paid as the result of an FTC settlement.

With privately brought class-action civil cases, it is common for non-profits to get part or even all of the settlement funds in what is called a cy-près award. In many cases, the non-profits provide services or information to benefit people who may have been affected by the alleged misdeeds of the company that was sued. For example, several years ago, I served (without compensation) on the board of the Digital Trust Foundation, which received $6.5 million from a class action settlement from Facebook over its ill-fated Beacon program. The foundation distributed this money to “fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety and security,” and I’m proud of the work done by many of the groups we funded. Unless Congress decides to fund internet privacy or safety programs (which is unlikely), none of Facebook’s recent $5 billion or Google’s $170 million FTC settlement will go to the type of groups funded by our foundation’s relatively paltry $6.5 million dollars.

In addition to being bothered about where these fines wind up, I’m also bothered by an unintended consequence of Google’s settlement.

While Google probably deserves the fine and can easily afford it, the changes required by this settlement will have an enormous adverse affect on numerous small businesses, individuals and organizations that create YouTube content for children because they won’t earn nearly as much from contextual ads as they now do with behavioral ads.

I’m not arguing that they should earn money from behavioral ads. But I do worry that some of these creators will go out of business and no longer serve the entertainment and educational needs of their young viewers.

“We know these changes will have a significant business impact on family and kids creators who have been building both wonderful content and thriving businesses,” wrote YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, on YouTube’s blog, “so we’ve worked to give impacted creators four months to adjust before changes take effect on YouTube.”

As a partial solution, Wojcicki said that YouTube is “establishing a $100 million fund, disbursed over three years, dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children’s content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally.” That’s a good start, but it’s still not enough. Children need and deserve great content as well as privacy and freedom from intrusive advertising. That’s why I’ve long been a fan of PBS-Kids and would like to see government and private industry step up to the plate to fund more great online content for children.

Plus came out late June starting at about $900, and last week, Samsung and its carrier partners started shipping the new Galaxy Note 10 Plus, starting at $1,099.

The price is almost as astronomical as the Galaxy Plus’s 6.8-inch screen, but it’s in line with what Apple charges for its high-end phones. And, like many things we buy, you can probably get it for less.

AT&T loaned me a Note S10 Plus along with a trial account, but I plugged in the SIM card from my old phone to use the AT&T account I pay for. That way I could fully test this phone as if it were my own, taking and making calls and responding to text messages as well as all the other tasks one does with a smartphone.

Although a case could be made for the Galaxy Note 10 as a consumer device, it’s mostly a business phone, even capable of being used as a desktop computer thanks to its DEX integration with Windows and Mac PC that lets you use a USB cable to connect your phone or your PC and use your PC’s keyboard, mouse and monitor with the phone.

At first glance, Dex sounds silly. Why would you want to use your PC to access your phone, when you have access to all the Windows or Mac apps you can run on your PC? But there are some apps, such as Instagram, that are only available on phones, and there may be times you want the bigger screen and keyboard. Also, you may be using your phone for work – perhaps using Outlook or Microsoft Word for Android – and simply want to continue where you left off when you get to the office without having to sync your devices. But if you do want to sync, there are tools for that, too.

Another business tool – which some consumers will appreciate – is the stylus that comes with the Note that lets you draw or write directly on the screen. The Note 10 adds handwriting recognition so you can take notes on the phone’s screen and have them transcribed into actual text that you can include in documents or emails. I was able to get this to work, but in my case, it wasn’t a great experience. My handwriting is already bad – even when I’m at a desk with pen and paper. For me, writing on a phone screen was even more illegible, leading to lots of transcription errors. Still, when I slowed way down, I was able to write so that the app could read it, but I’d much rather type than write.

I did find the stylus useful when I had to sign a document and found it kind of useful as a pointing device. As soon as you remove the stylus from its slot, the phone starts to respond – even if you’re not touching the screen.

As I mentioned, the screen on the 10 Plus is huge (a less expensive Note 10 with a smaller 6.3-inch screen is coming soon) but it’s also a beautiful screen. Photos just pop and text is crystal clear.

To me, battery life is the most important spec of any phone, and the large 4,300 mAh battery kept this phone going and going, like the Energizer bunny. I could actually get through a full day without a recharge, which is more than I can say for my Android Pixel 3.

Normally I don’t pay a lot of attention to phone processors – just about all modern phones are pretty fast. But I did notice snappier performance from the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 CPU and the phone’s 12 GB of internal memory (not to be confused with the standard 256 GB of storage that comes standard). And if that 256 GB isn’t enough storage, you can order a model with 512 GB of storage or add a MicroSD card for even more storage. The phone is also water resistant, although I wouldn’t recommend swimming with it.

But what I mostly noticed about the phone was its edge-to-edge screen. This phone is all glass, and even though some reviewers are salivating about its amazing glass back that changes colors depending on how the light hits it, the first accessory I bought for this phone is a rubber case so it’s less likely to shatter if I drop it. Frankly, I think a case is a must for every smartphone, which is why I never pay attention to how great the case looks from the back because you’ll never see the back once it’s in the case.

Even though Samsung once made fun of Apple for abandoning the headphone jack, Samsung followed suit. The phone’s bundled earbuds plug into its USB C port, and if you want to use headphones, they better be USB or wireless Bluetooth, although you can get a dongle that inconveniently lets you plug headphones into the USB port.

Despite my delight with this new phone, I’m not recommending that everyone rush out and buy one. First, there’s the price. There are excellent phones on the market for a lot less. Second is the fact that you probably don’t need a new phone, unless yours is starting to get really old. Also, most people don’t need a phone this big and most people don’t need a stylus. Still, I love watching video on this large screen and do find it easier to type when there is a bigger on-screen keyboard.

The other reason to hold off is because we’re entering the season for other new phones. Apple is almost certain to announce the iPhone 11 on September 10, followed by Google’s Pixel 4. But, if you are ready for a new phone, are willing to shell out a fair amount of money and love the idea of phone with a big and beautiful screen, the Galaxy Note 10 Plus is worth a look.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/30/samsung-galaxy-note-10-is-big-beautiful-and-pricey/feed/064117422019-08-30T03:00:25+00:002019-08-30T07:29:26+00:00Magid: A love story about a departed sibling*https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/22/a-love-story-about-a-departed-sibling-thats-also-a-tech-story/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/22/a-love-story-about-a-departed-sibling-thats-also-a-tech-story/#respondThu, 22 Aug 2019 10:00:18 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6382915&preview_id=6382915Like always, today’s column is about tech. But it’s also a love story that started when I was a baby, so please bear with me. I promise to get to the tech.

My sister, Carol Ann Magid, passed away last week at the age of 79 at the house in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles that she, my brother and I grew

Carol Anne Magid and Pooh taken during her last hour of life. (Courtesy of Larry Magid)

up in. Although she had been married, she had no biological children, but over her lifespan, she adopted countless dogs and cats – all rescues, doing her part to save innocent lives from so-called euthanasia. In addition to her own adoptions, she rescued and placed many more animals. She once even brought home a sheep from the Van Nuys High School farm to graze in her backyard rather than become someone’s dinner.

When I was six months old, I had a life-threatening illness and, though I don’t remember it, I’m told that my older sister almost never left my side. She’s been with me ever since. She clipped out every article I wrote during my 19-year stint at the Los Angeles Times and recorded my daily radio segments on the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. Even though we lived hundreds of miles apart, we would talk and exchange emails, often about her animal rescue efforts. In the late 1970s, when I was a private pilot, she visited me in Massachusetts and agreed to fly with me to an airport in New Hampshire next to a riding stable as long as I agreed to go for a horseback ride. She was afraid of small planes and I was nervous around horses. We both survived.

On July 13, I got word she was in the hospital, followed by a week in a nursing home. She was then sent home to be on hospice. I hoped she’d live for years or at least months and I knew that there would be a lot of caregivers coming and going along with the two women who were taking care of her three dogs. So, and here’s the tech part, I decided to install an electronic door lock along with a doorbell camera, a driveway and three webcams and assign each caregiver and animal helper a unique door code while using the cameras to keep track of people coming in out, even when I was in Silicon Valley.

There are lots of relatively inexpensive options for everything I needed including a Ring doorbell, August lock and webcams from several companies, including Google-owned Nest, all of which come with apps that would give me remote access. But I had all I could do to manage her care, organize her house, deal with her pets and do my own work so – even though all these products are excellent and relatively easy to self-install, I just couldn’t do it. So, I called Vivint, which, like ADT and Xfinity, offers a professionally installed and managed service for doorbells, cameras, light switches and other IoT devices. They agreed to install the equipment last Wednesday and showed up exactly on-time.

Unfortunately, my sister took a sudden turn for the worse on Monday night, which prompted the hospice company to provide 24/7 nursing care and advise us to let the other caregivers go. I thought of canceling the installation but decided to go ahead with it for the hospice nurses and animal helpers. We had no way of knowing how long they would remain.

The system was only in place for about 36 hours before she passed, but – for a few moments – it proved priceless. In the wee hours Thursday morning my wife and I watched and listened to her bedroom camera and got to see that the overnight nurse was giving her loving care. We could see her breathing comfortably, even though she was unable to talk, eat or drink.

Carol is gone, but two of her dogs are still in the house, so I still need to keep an eye on the house and provide access for the animal caregivers along with the workers that will inevitably be hired to clean and fix up the house for sale. The realtor – once that time comes – will also need access. Plus, it’s good to have some extra security that all those cameras provide, plus the alarm system which will go off if someone tries to get in without an authorized code.

The app will let me add or remove authorized visitors, tell me when someone comes to the door or rings the doorbell and even let me remotely unlock the door if necessary. It’s the next best thing to being there. Please contact me at larrysworld.com/contact if you want to adopt a gentle male pit-bull or a 13-year-old male three-legged chow/border collie.Oh, there is one more tech story. As I’ve written before, I bought a Tesla Model 3 last year. A few months ago, Tesla added “dog mode,” which lets you control the cabin temperature when the car is parked and displays a prominent image on the car’s large screen telling passers-by the temperature inside the car and that “my owner will be back soon.” Even though we have a dog at home, he’s never been in the Tesla. But, in honor of my sister, my wife and I decided to adopt her sweet 10-year-old cocker-spaniel, Pooh. To avoid extreme heat, we took 101 back instead of I-5, and during most of our charging stops, we took her for a walk. But we still had to leave her in the car during one stop, so I finally got to try out dog mode. Carol, who drove a 1984 very low-tech Oldsmobile that she proudly had fixed up and painted, would have found that amusing.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/22/a-love-story-about-a-departed-sibling-thats-also-a-tech-story/feed/063829152019-08-22T03:00:18+00:002019-08-22T08:28:43+00:00Magid: Studies show no link between video games, violencehttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/08/magid-video-games-do-require-some-caution/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/08/magid-video-games-do-require-some-caution/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 11:00:55 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6340516&preview_id=6340516In his address to the nation following a weekend of two mass shootings, President Trump made a reference to violent video games, suggesting that these games may
Larry Magid

have something to do with shootings such as the ones that took place in El Paso and Dayton.

He said, “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”

The president isn’t the only politician drawing a link between violent video games and actual violence House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox & Friends that they, too, believe there’s a link between playing violent games and committing violent acts.

Former vice president and Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “It is not healthy to have these games teaching the kids the dispassionate notion that you can shoot somebody and just, you know, sort of blow their brains out,” but he added that “it’s not in and of itself the reason why we have this carnage on our streets.”

I can understand why politicians are worried about these games. There is some research that media can affect attitudes and The American Psychological Association did report that “research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior.” But the organization “identified a number of limitations in the research that require further study, and acknowledged that such aggression doesn’t typically lead to violence. The APA also said that further research needs to “look at the effects of video game play in people at risk for aggression or violence due to a combination of risk factors. For example, how do depression or delinquency interact with violent video game use?”

As it turns out, there is a lot of research on this issue and most of it found no meaningful link between playing violent video games and committing acts of violence. Sure, there are murderers who are among the roughly 90% of young men who had played violent video games, but the vast majority of those young men never act out. And there is no clear indication that those who do commit violent crimes were influenced by playing those games.

But even the APA’s limited findings, according to two leading researchers, Dr. Christopher Ferguson and Andrew K. Przybylski are subject to question.

In a 2019 research report in the journal Royal Society Open Science Przybylski found that “Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents’ aggressive behavior.” In an email interview he elaborated, “We didn’t find evidence that supported the idea that especially high levels of violent video game had different effects than moderate play. Instead we found that both simple and more complex correlations between violent gaming and aggressive behavior did not exist.”

In an interview, Chris Ferguson, who is a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Deland, Florida, said that “We’ve done a number of studies looking at long-term outcomes with kids, including one with over 3,000 youth in Singapore. “From these long-term outcome studies, it’s very clear that playing violent video games is not a risk factor for assaultive behavior, lack of helpingness, lack of empathy.” He said that playing video games is not a predictor of crime. He said there could be cases where playing violent video games could lead to “aggression,” but that it’s typically very mild aggression – more like pranks than anything dangerous. He joked that watching Full House “actually makes me very angry because I just hate that show.”

Given the vast number of young men who have played violent video games there is, of course,a correlation between playing those games and violence, just as there is a correlation between drinking milk as a child and violence. Most people who commit violence drank milk but most people who drank milk didn’t commit violence.

As per attitudes toward violent games, a 2016 study by Andrew K. Przybylski​ and Netta Weinstein found that “controlling for participant age and gender, direct game experience was linked to lower negative attitudes,” adding that direct experience with video game mitigates the belief that it contributes to mass-shootings.

Having said this, I still think parents should pay attention to the games their children play and only allow them to play games that are age appropriate.

Even if a violent game won’t turn an otherwise law-abiding citizen into a mass murderer, it can still be upsetting and inappropriate depending on the age and maturity of the child.

Parents can find game ratings from the Entertainment Rating Software Board. Categories include Everyone, Everyone 10+, Teen, Mature 17+ and Adults Only 18+. I also recommend reading reviews, including the excellent reviews by Common Sense Media and, whenever possible, playing the game with your child or teen or at least observing them playing the game.

As nice as the iPhone 10x and Samsung Galaxy S10 phones are, most people don’t need to spend $1,000 or more on a smartphone. In fact, most people don’t need to spend anything on a new phone because their old one probably works just fine.

Today’s smartphone market reminds me of the auto-industry of the ’50s and ’60s when people were encouraged to buy a new car every year or two. My frugal parents didn’t fall for that, but a lot of their friends did.

Apple and Samsung, of course, want you to buy the latest and greatest offering every year and even have financing programs to encourage that by having you, essentially, lease your phone with the payments added to your cell phone bill. It may be painless, easy and seemingly affordable, but if you add up the numbers, you’ll find you’re spending a lot more than you need to, even if they aren’t charging you interest.

Imagine if that were the case with other things you own. When’s the last time you replaced your refrigerator, stove, microwave oven or coffee maker? If you’re like me, only after the old-one stopped working or got too expensive to repair. Sure, there are breakthrough moments like the time I replaced a greasy old electric stove with a shiny new induction cooktop but, other than that, I don’t think about my appliances until they stop working – and even then I usually just get them fixed.

And unlike the difference between my old stove and my newer one, this year’s smartphones aren’t all that much better than last year’s. Every year when Tim Cook introduces a new iPhone, he says something to the effect of “it’s the best iPhone ever.” He’s right of course – why would they introduce a flagship phone that isn’t better than last year’s. But the difference is often trivial. Yes, they improve the camera every year, but cell phone cameras have been good for several years now. Yes, they’re faster, but last year’s phone is fast enough and, besides, the reasons phones slow down isn’t because of big differences in hardware but because of the apps you use.

If your phone is slow or a bit buggy, you can return its performance to the way it was the day you bought it by making sure your data is backed up (it probably already is to iCloud or Google’s backup servers but check first) and then restore it to factory defaults. That will erase everything and clean up all the digital cobwebs. Restore your apps and I bet it will be a lot faster. It might even be more energy efficient if you only replace the apps you actually need vs. the many you’ve probably installed but rarely use.

Of course, some people do need to buy a new phone. Their old one might break, get lost or perhaps the screen is cracked, or the battery isn’t lasting as long. You can have the screen or batteries replaced but it might not be worth it. But if you are in the market for a new phone, you don’t need to spend $1,000 or more for a decent one just as you don’t need to spend $50,000 or more for a reliable new car.I recently reviewed Google’s Pixel 3a which sells for $399 or $16.63 a month for 24 months, which adds up to $399.12 – an interest free loan.

For most practical purposes it’s as good as Google’s flagship Pixel 3, that starts at $799. It’s not 100% as good, but it’s 50% the price and has a longer battery life. You give up water resistance and inductive charging and, in theory, the screen isn’t as nice, but the difference is negligible. The processor is a bit slower than the flagship model but – again – the difference is essentially irrelevant. Very few people would even notice.

There are plenty of other budget-priced Android phones on the market from LG, Motorola, Nokia and other companies. Even Samsung has affordable phones, including slightly older models like the Galaxy S8, which Best Buy sells unlocked starting at $349. You can buy a reconditioned one for less.

If you simply must have an iPhone, you can get a perfectly good older model such as the iPhone 8, for a lot less than the latest model. Apple sells brand new ones for $599. Gazelle.com sells reconditioned ones for just over $400. The iPhone 7, which was state-of-the-art when it was released in late 2016 is now only $449 from Apple and start at $239 from Gazelle. You can probably find lower prices on eBay.

If you want – literally – the latest iPhone, you can save about 25% by selecting an iPhone XR instead of the iPhone XS. I’ve reviewed by the XS and XR and find them to be comparable in most important aspects. As I said when I first reviewed them, The XS has a higher-resolution OLED display compared with the LCD screen on the XR, but holding them side-by-side, the difference, to my eyes, is negligible.

Despite what I just wrote, I know some people will want the latest and greatest and some of you who own the latest iPhone or Samsung, or Pixel are anxiously awaiting the new high-end models that will be announced this fall. I don’t blame you – I get excited about new phones too and enjoy getting to review them as soon as they’re released. If you really want a new phone and can swing it without having to forgo rent, skimp on medicine or eat beans for dinner, than I’m certainly not going to tell you not to indulge yourself. But if you need to save some money or have other things you’d rather spend your dollars on, then heed my advice and either keep your old phone or get a really good one that serves your needs but doesn’t break the bank.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/02/magid-there-are-good-reasons-that-apple-and-samsung-are-having-trouble-selling-their-most-expensive-phones/feed/063247822019-08-02T03:00:30+00:002019-08-03T05:35:49+00:00Magid: Versatile browser touts privacy, unique pay systemhttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/26/magid-2/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/26/magid-2/#respondFri, 26 Jul 2019 11:00:51 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6282646&preview_id=6282646For the past several days I’ve been using the Brave Browser on my iPhone, Android phone and my PC. There is also a Mac version. It’s a relatively new
Larry Magid

browser, first launched in 2016 and recently updated. It’s the brain child of Brendan Eich, who is credited as the creator of the JavaScript programming language and as co-founder of Mozilla, the non-profit that developed the Firefox browser.

Brave is based on Chromium — the underlying code beyond Google’s Chrome browser. But it’s faster than Chrome, spares you from ads by default and claims to be more secure.

Because it shares code with Chrome, it’s able to run most of the extensions developed to enhance Chrome and has a similar enough user interface to make it easy to transition from Google’s popular browser. It can also import bookmarks and other settings from Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firebox.

One the reasons for the increased speed is because, by default, Brave blocks ads. In fact, it reported blocking more than 400 ads in my first few minutes of use, across several news sites.

Regardless of whether you like looking at ads, they take time to download and display and that often causes sites to load more slowly. They also use more data, which can have a financial impact if you’re paying for data. Brave claims that it loads pages 2 times faster on desktop and up to 8 times faster on mobile, compared with Chrome. I didn’t test it with a stopwatch, but I did side-by-side comparisons between Brave and Google Chrome on a number of news sites on an iPhone, Android and Windows PC and definitely noticed faster loading, especially on the mobile devices.

Besides improving performance, there are other upsides to skipping ads. In addition to being faster, it makes using the web less intrusive and eliminates some of the most annoying and distracting ads such as those that play sound or take over the entire page.

There is one downside to blocking ads. As my bosses at the Mercury News, CBS News, Forbes and other sites I write for tell you, they’re the way these companies make the money they need to pay me and other journalists along with their full-time employees and other expenses. Brave’s answer is to allow sites to create a “tipping banner” so that users can pay them via cryptocurrency. I’m not sure how many major sites will bother with this, but if Brave becomes popular, it could catch on.

Brave is also allowing users to opt into viewing ads but, unlike other ad systems, you “earn 70% of the ad revenue that we receive from advertisers.” But there is a catch. You don’t really earn that money, instead it goes into an account that — at least for now — you can only use to tip websites you visit.

I love the idea of these payment systems. Privacy advocates have long argued that our time and attention is valuable and that we should be entitled to compensation for our information. I also like the idea of being able to pay for content through micropayments. Brave allows you to tip as little as 23 cents or as much as you want. I’m happy to pay several dollars a month for quality news sites I visit frequently, but not one I use only on rare occasions.

Still, these payment systems feel a little too geeky for most users and even web operators seeking to accept tips. I enrolled my personal website, Larrysworld.com, to receive payments and – while it wasn’t horribly complex, it was slightly confusing. I didn’t have much trouble installing the required WordPress plug-in to display a banner asking for money, but I’m still trying to figure out how to display that banner. If I ever do get paid, it will be in cryptocurrency that I have to convert to U.S. dollars or use to tip other site operators.

In addition to blocking ads, Brave also blocks tracking and its private browsing window uses Tor to provide a high level of privacy and security. Brave says that its servers “neither see nor store your browsing data,” so it “stays private, on your devices, until you delete it.”

Other than the geeky financing models, Brave is generally user friendly. But, because of the power of competition from Google, Microsoft and Apple, I don’t expect Brave to become a highly popular product. But just because those other browsers are more popular, doesn’t mean they’re better.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, Brave is worth checking out. I’m not deleting my other browsers, but I am spending more time on Brave and – the more I use it, the more I like it. You don’t have to make it your default browser unless you want to. You can install it and see how you like it and easily switch back and forth between Brave and whatever other browsers you use.

It’s not for everyone but is a good choice for those of us who are brave enough to try something new.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/26/magid-2/feed/062826462019-07-26T04:00:51+00:002019-07-27T06:31:20+00:00Magid: FaceApp requires caution, not fearhttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/19/magid-four-lessons-about-faceapp/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/19/magid-four-lessons-about-faceapp/#respondFri, 19 Jul 2019 10:00:21 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6264870&preview_id=6264870There are four lessons when it comes to FaceApp. Number one, it’s important to understand the privacy implications of it and every other app you use. Number two,
Larry Magid

don’t believe every rumor you hear about horrible things apps might do. Number three, don’t assume that every app or piece of technology coming out of Russia is necessarily nefarious and number four: it’s fun.

Faceapp is a popular iOS and Android app that lets you see how you’re going to look when you get older and remind you how you may have looked when you were younger. You can also apply it to pictures of other people. It’s a fun app, but it has also raised both real and imagined privacy concerns.

Let’s start with the imagined one.

There were widespread rumors and media reports that the app was sending all of your photos, including screenshots, to its developers in Russia and implications that these images were being turned over to the Russian government. Senator Chuck Schumer called for FBI and Federal Trade Commission investigations because of the app’s “national security and privacy risks for millions of U.S. citizens.” But both the AP and the New York Times quoted security experts who said that the app was not sending your entire photo library to the company’s servers but only the photos you selected, which makes sense since the most effective way the company could apply its algorithms to you pictures is if you upload them to their servers. Still, as part of lesson one, it is important to note that the app’s privacy policy does give the developer some rights — including the right to send you ads and store your pictures, but this is typical of many apps. So, getting back to lesson number one, do pay attention to privacy policies but know they can sometimes be complex. FaceApp’s privacy policy is typically broad and legalistic but not draconian as privacy policies go,

When it comes to lesson number two, don’t assume everything bad or good you hear about an app or any other technology is necessarily true. There are a lot of false rumors and urban myths circulating online. A while back, millions of people reposted the false rumor that “Facebook has just released the entry price, $5.99, to keep the subscription of your status to be set to “private,” and there are plenty of other examples. Frankly, I’m disappointed that media outlets and elected officials fell into and spread the moral panic over this app before verifying the rumors.

My policy is to avoid sharing information I see on social media without first making some effort to find out if it’s true. You may never be 100% sure of whether something is true or false, but you can make a reasonable effort by searching for information and paying attention to the sources of the information you find. For example, I can’t swear with 100% certainty that the security experts quoted by the New York Times and the AP are correct about what they say about FaceApp, but I do know those are credible experts being quoted by credible media outlets.

Lesson number three is less about technology and more about our national obsession with all things Russia. Yes, the Russian government interfered with our election. Yes there are companies that collaborate closely with the Putin administration. But not everyone in Russia is an agent of the government. I can’t say with certainty that the app developer isn’t turning over information to the Russian government, but there is no evidence that it is happening. The Washington Post reported that its developer, Wireless Labs, was founded and is run by CEO Yaroslav Goncharov, who worked for Microsoft as a technical lead in Redmond, Washington, for three years starting in 2003 and more recently held executive positions for Russian telecommunications companies, SPB Software and Yandex. Again, I don’t know if he is or isn’t turning over data, but what I do know is that great technology has been coming out of Russia since the Soviet Era and — while there is always good reason to be concerned — there is also no reason to panic over every company based in Russia or for that matter China. Concern yes, panic no.

Lesson number four is that FaceApp is fun, but far from perfect. It applies a lot of filters to images, including an age filter that attempts to approximate what you will look like in the future and what you looked like when you were younger. I tried it and was amused by my future self (more wrinkled but not that bad) and disappointed on how inaccurate it was about my past self. There are other filters that let you change hair color, style and add facial hair but these only work on the Pro version that I didn’t want to pay for.

Bottom line: Enjoy your phone and your apps, but do vet apps and do know that there are privacy concerns with many apps you probably already use, including some from major companies. There is a lot we don’t know about what apps actually do, but if we’re careful we can at least reduce our risk.

Finally, there is one more risk associated with FaceApp. It’s one more piece of technology that can distort reality so, if you see a picture of someone who looks older than they should, it may be real, but it may also be fake.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/19/magid-four-lessons-about-faceapp/feed/062648702019-07-19T03:00:21+00:002019-07-20T05:52:21+00:00Magid: A virtual security guard for your homehttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/11/magid-a-virtual-security-guard-for-your-home/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/11/magid-a-virtual-security-guard-for-your-home/#respondThu, 11 Jul 2019 11:00:44 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6246315&preview_id=6246315There are many home security systems on the market, including some standalone cameras that will alert you if there is movement, all the way up to fully monitored
Larry Magid

systems like Deep Sentinel that’s only one-step away from having a security guard posted in front of your house.

Some, like the Canary, start at under $60 and come with an app that lets you see whatever the camera sees. Canary offers both indoor and outdoor cameras.

A popular outdoor camera is the Ring doorbell, starting at $100, that replaces your doorbell with a combination doorbell/camera that lets you see visitors on your phone and speak with them either through your phone or an Alexa device like the Amazon Echo.

Any of these cameras let you check your home (or vacation home) at any time via an app. But, for the most part, they’re “DYI” devices that you install, and you monitor yourself.

Monitored systems

If you’re willing to spend a monthly fee, you can get a fully managed system from ADT, Vivint, Comcast and other companies that include the cameras, installation and monitoring. I have a Vivint system in my home which includes a doorbell camera, a driveway camera and a couple of inside cameras. Vivint recently upgraded our driveway camera with the new Outdoor Camera Pro, that features a Smart Sentry AI tool “that not only identifies true threats, but also helps prevent break-ins by warning lurkers on your property they’ve been spotted.” according to their website. I know it works because someone was hanging out in our driveway for a while and, sure enough, I got a warning, though the person didn’t pose any real threat.

One thing I like about this new camera is that it’s less likely to record random events that don’t need your attention. The previous generation camera recorded every car that drove by my house, recording so many “events,” that I was likely to miss any real threats. The new one seems to be able to better determine the difference between a possible threat and normal movements.

As with the Ring and many other home surveillance cameras, there is a talk feature that allows you to speak to whomever triggered an event.

Fortunately, the events recorded by my systems were not threats at all. And there have been times when having a doorbell camera has been great – such as when we weren’t home when a repair person showed up. Not only could we see and speak with him, but we have also have Vivint smart lock on our door with which I was able to unlock from my phone to let him in.

Deep Sentinel employs human security guards

I’ve recently been testing out the Deep Sentinel systems that consists of three wireless cameras installed around my home plus a 24/7 monitoring service that uses a combination of artificial intelligence and humans to keep an eye on our house and yard.

For $500, you get three install-it-yourself cameras, a smart hub that wirelessly connects to the cameras and an extra battery that charges inside the hub. The good news is that these cameras are battery operated so you can put them virtually anywhere without having to worry about wires. The bad news is that that battery has to be changed out every few weeks, which is why there is always an extra battery charging in the hub.

In addition to buying the cameras, you’ll spend $49 a month for the service, which is Deep Sentinel’s secret sauce.

Lots of companies will, for a monthly fee, monitor an alarm system and call the police if an alarm goes off, but Deep Sentinel’s AI and human guards strive to prevent someone from breaking into your house before a crime is committed. The AI software looks for suspicious activity such as someone lingering on your porch, reaching for packages or trying to force a lock. If the software finds something suspicious, a human guard takes a look and has the option to talk with the person (the cameras have speakers and microphones) to find out what they’re doing and ask them to leave if necessary or call the police if the person continues to pose a threat.

I inadvertently had a chance to test the system in action a few weeks ago. I was out of town when Deep Sentinel called me to say that police where on my porch. It turned out that our house cleaner had inadvertently triggered an alarm on our Vivint system because I had accidentally turned off a feature that disables the alarm when an authorized person enters their code on our electronic door lock. Vivint tried to call me but I didn’t get the call so they called the police. Ironically, because I was also testing Deep Sentinel, their agents saw the police at my door and called me to explain what they had observed.

Had I only been using Deep Sentinel, and not Vivint, the police probably never would have been called because Deep Sentinel’s human guards might have determined that our house cleaner wasn’t a threat. That’s not a criticism of Vivint — their agents did what they are supposed to do — call the police if an alarm goes off. But there is something to be said for Deep Sentinel’s approach, which is more protective than reactive.

And speaking of reacting, my house cleaner was understandably shaken by the alarm. That’s why I immediately called her to reassure her and apologize and then disabled the alarm and remotely unlocked the door for her. I also sent a note to the police to apologize for the false alarm and thank them for coming out.

]]>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/11/magid-a-virtual-security-guard-for-your-home/feed/062463152019-07-11T04:00:44+00:002019-07-11T04:11:59+00:00Magid: Facebook changes nature of corporate decision-makinghttps://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/05/magid-facebooks-bold-experiment-changes-the-nature-of-important-aspects-of-corporate-decision-making/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/05/magid-facebooks-bold-experiment-changes-the-nature-of-important-aspects-of-corporate-decision-making/#respondFri, 05 Jul 2019 11:00:45 +0000https://www.eastbaytimes.com?p=6236664&preview_id=6236664Facebook is a company, not a government, but its user base is bigger than the population of any country in the world and the decisions made by its staff affect
Larry Magid

people in some of the same ways as decisions made by legislatures and courts in many countries. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way Facebook regulates speech.

What it allows and forbids affects people’s ability to communicate, but also impacts their safety, privacy, security and human rights. And sometimes rights are in conflict or at least appear to be so, such as cases where certain types of speech can impact people’s rights or personal safety or some privacy protections, like encryption, can make it harder for law enforcement to protect the public.

As a country, the United States grapples with similar issues, but we have publicly elected legislators to make laws, publicly elected officials to enforce them and duly appointed judges to interpret them. And, based on contentious votes in Congress, leaks about disagreements within administrations and the number of 5-4 decisions by our Supreme Court, it’s clear that making “the right decision” isn’t always obvious or easy.

But aside from the fact that Facebook lacks the legitimacy of a sovereign nation, its job is even harder than that of legislators and judges because it operates globally, in countries with very different laws and traditions including the U.S., which has a strong tradition of free speech, Europe where free speech is limited by laws banning hate speech, and other places where authoritarian regimes have imposed much broader limitations on what people are allowed to say. And images that are perfectly acceptable in some cultures are considered vulgar — and perhaps illegal — in others.

These issues come up frequently. There have been numerous public arguments about what constitutes acceptable speech on Facebook. Sometimes the right decisions seem pretty obvious, but at other times, there are nuances and competing rights and interests to be considered.

The company recently changed its policy to ban expressions of white nationalism and white supremacy just as some, including President Donald Trump, have accused the company of discriminating against conservatives. Are pictures of people being tortured or beheaded gratuitous violence or terrorist propaganda or could they be legitimate news stories or rightfully posted to elicit outrage for horrible acts? Years ago, its policies against nudity were successfully challenged by moms wanting to show pictures of themselves nursing.

Who’s in charge?

As a publicly traded private company, Facebook is accountable to its stockholders, not the public at large. And, because of his vast stock holdings in the company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is effectively in complete control. Yet, when it comes to some decisions, even Zuckerberg realizes that the stakes are too high for one person or one company to hold all the cards, and that’s one of the reason’s Facebook is in the process of putting together an Oversight Board for Content Decisions.

That board, which will be made up of a diverse group of about 40 people from around the world, will be like what The Verge called a “Supreme Court for content moderation.” The board, according to Facebook, will serve as an “independent authority outside of Facebook,” and have the power to “reverse Facebook’s decisions when necessary.”

Facebook is going to great lengths to assure that this board has a global perspective. “We have traveled around the world hosting six in-depth workshops and 22 roundtables attended by more than 650 people from 88 different countries. We had personal discussions with more than 250 people and received over 1,200 public consultation submissions,” wrote Brent Harris, Facebook’s director of governance and global affairs.

Board will have extraordinary power

This is an extraordinary and mostly unprecedented undertaking from a private company which recognizes the potential impact of its decisions. If the board operates as planned, it will have the ability to overrule Zuckerberg himself on matters of what content is and isn’t allowed on the service.

Zuckerberg discussed the board and its role in a video conversation with Jenny Martinez, Dean of Stanford Law School and Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law and adviser on the oversight board.

Martinez set the stage by pointing out “companies like Facebook have really very global power and power that seems a lot like what governments have … in a company that isn’t accountable in a way that a democratically elected government would be.”

She said that historically “there were previous periods where very large companies played a role that also straddled the divide between public and private powers,” like the British East India Company, which engaged in what we would now consider government powers like coining money or raising an army. Although it doesn’t have its own army, Facebook is kind of engaged in the coining of money through its participation in the Libra Alliance.

In the video, Harvard’s Noah Feldman, said that the review board’s “legitimacy ultimately will be real when people see decisions that are different from what FB would otherwise have decided to do.” Zuckerberg agreed, and pledged to respect the board’s decisions, even if they overrule his decisions. “That’s my expectation, we can say that this is an independent process, we can have a consultative approach to helping design it and who should be on it, but trust will build up over time.”

Perspective

I’m viewing these conversations about this powerful review board from my perspective as a 10-year founding member of the less powerful Facebook Safety Advisory Board, which is composed of safety experts mostly representing nonprofit organizations in several countries. I serve in my capacity as CEO of ConnectSafely.org, which receives financial support from Facebook.

This board is independent and, at times, has disagreed with decisions made by Facebook management. But even though the board is treated with great respect by Facebook executives, its role is purely advisory. We are not empowered to overrule Facebook’s management. I’m not complaining. It’s doing what it was designed to do, but the design and mandate for the Oversight Board for Content is profoundly different.

If Facebook does a good job in creating a board which is both representative and independent and if it faithfully abides by its decisions, even when they are in conflict with what executives like Zuckerberg want, it will be at least a partial shift in the nature of corporate governance by creating a body that is neither controlled by the corporation itself or the governments in countries where the corporation operates.

At the end of the day, local law in each jurisdiction will trump any decisions by this board and — I suppose — Facebook could change its mind and fail to implement one or more of the board’s decisions, but if we take the company at its word, that isn’t supposed to happen. And, although content review is an extremely important part of what makes Facebook Facebook, there are other very important decisions — including personnel — that are outside the jurisdiction of this board.

Although Facebook is not completely rewriting the rules of corporate governance, it is making a bold move that changes the way some of its most important decisions will be made by empowering people who represent those affected by the company who — without such a board — would have no power over how the company operates. It is, to an extent, taking on powers held by governments as well as powers held by stockholders and board members. It’s a bold experiment.